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Tuesday, 29 January 2008

Takenobu Mitsuyoshi - From Loud 2 Low

Do dodo do, do do dooo dooooo! Daydooonaaa!

Everyone familiar with the Sega Saturn should also be familiar with Takenobu Mitsuyoshi, who is one of Sega's most remarkable composer of video game soundtracks. He joined Sega's sound team around 1990 and quickly became a member of Sega's S.S.T. Band (Sega Sound Team). With his soundtrack to the hit arcade game Daytona he quickly built his very own monument. That didn't make him lazy or even coky, tough. No, instead he continued to fully take advantage of the medium compact disc and produced great soundtracks for games like Virtua Fighter, Shen Mue (incredible orchestra music!), Daytona 2, Sega Rally and Burning Rangers. Many of them with vocal tracks, which demonstrated his unique voice and are true classics today. Once you've played a game with his soundtrack, you'll remember a tune from him for sure.

(No Daytona without Takenobu Mitsuyoshi)

On November the 4th in 2003 he finally released a solo album (buy it here), which contains some of his best works. Many of them have previously been released but it also contains some unreleased tracks. The most noticable being an interpretation of the ending theme of Burning Rangers, which was originally sung by a women. The "interesting" thing about it: Takenobu tries to recreate that female voice. It sounds really weird at first, but fans of the Burning Rangers game will immediately recognize and fall in love with it. No matter how weird you might find his voice at first, his tunes to the Daytona racing series are instant classics. So it's a no brainer, that the album features them as well. When it comes to the Virtua Fighter Anime theme song and especially the Burning Rangers theme, Takenobu finally shows, that he can also sing a more "mature" way. You know, without all the engrish and "Do do doo" found in the Daytona music. I can really recommend the album, since it not only features 5 and more new tunes (depending on how much you know, from him! I, for example, never heard the Anime Virtua Fighter songs!) but it also gathers his best works in once place.

Whilst browsing for his name on google I also found this hilarious live performance of the Daytona Song "Let's Go Away", which he is performing together with Rony Barrak. It's a great example of how crazy he is in real life. On a sidenote: I had the pleasure to meet him at the "Games Convention 2007" in Germany, where he signed my copy of the Shen Mue Orchestra OST. Check out the video, it's... I am out of words.

4 comments:

elend! A truly inspirational post! You're knowledge of the Saturn beyond the games and into the deepest recesses of Saturn folklore is quite stunning. Though I've enjoyed the music in the games, I never knew who was behind them. He did the Shenmue soundtrack? Awesome! And you've met him and he signed your soundtrack??? Incredible!

Celebrating 11 years of existence...and 7 years of excellence

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